Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

[00:00:00] Jonah Platt: Can we all try something? Can we all please try to stop using the word antisemitism, which is opaque, has historical and political context, and obfuscates the true meaning of how the word is understood today? Instead, can we please start saying anti Jew hate, or anti Jewish racism, or anti Jew bigotry?

[00:00:22] Jonah Platt: Let's start calling it like it is and not allowing antiquated, more polite terms to lessen the blow. I promise, it'll be a lot more arresting for someone to be called a Jew hater or anti Jew or anti Jewish racist than an anti Semite. So went the text of an infographic I posted on Instagram back in May of this year.

[00:00:42] Jonah Platt: The idea had been lodged in my mind after too many frustrating interactions with folks online. where instead of having the black and white conversation of, is this anti Jew hate or not, we'd get lost in some pseudo academic nonsense about the term anti Semitism itself. And you'll notice I often prefer to [00:01:00] say anti Jew, as opposed to anti Jewish, because hate against us is never about the religion.

[00:01:06] Jonah Platt: No one hates us because of our theology. It's not the Judaism they hate. It's the person. It's the Jew. So, in the words of MTV's Real World, I wanted the Jewish community to stop being polite and start getting real. So, I reached out to a few of the legacy Jewish organizations to ask if they would consider changing their official language moving forward.

[00:01:28] Jonah Platt: One disagreed with my assertion and said we have bigger fish to fry. Which, although true, I felt to be a little short sighted. And the other said it was an interesting concept, but wasn't confident it would pan out. It was around this time that, by a stroke of luck, my mother Julie, who, as some of you may know, is the current chairwoman of Jewish Federations of North America, reached out to connect me with a woman named Gretchen Barton, who is the founder and principal of Worthy Strategy Group, a research and behavioral science consulting group.

[00:01:58] Jonah Platt: Which basically means they get [00:02:00] hard data and deep understanding about how people think and feel about a whole host of issues. Gretchen had been presenting JFNA with some of her findings surrounding anti Jewish hate. including what messaging about Jews is successfully reaching people online, and what's actually shutting people down.

[00:02:18] Jonah Platt: Gretchen is amazing. She's warm and intelligent and very passionate about this work. We'll definitely have her on the show at some point. And also, by the way, not Jewish. So anyway, I told Gretchen my idea about ditching the word antisemitism. And she agreed to try it out in her research. This manifested in three ways.

[00:02:39] Jonah Platt: First, she and her team had already built a library of memes and GIFs with different messaging to test the response on social media. Their post got something like 60 million views, so a lot of data. What she observed was that whenever the meme labeled something as antisemitism, the majority of the comments would say, no it isn't.

[00:02:59] Jonah Platt: Or if the [00:03:00] message was, don't be anti semitic, the comments would be, but this isn't anti semitic. So that was the first indication that this term is ineffective. It's too ill defined, too misunderstood, too often misused. Second, she convened an ethnography, which is a word I learned today, and basically means she gathered an online panel of 15, 000 diverse Americans.

[00:03:25] Jonah Platt: And the results were stark. While the vast majority of American Jews believe that anti Zionism equals anti Semitism, which, spoiler alert, it totally does, but that's for another episode, only 13 percent of these panelists agreed. So again, something about the term anti Semitism is leaving too much room for interpretation and rendering it ineffective as a tool for calling out hate and changing minds.

[00:03:50] Jonah Platt: Lastly, and most pointedly, she showed the panel images and clips of anti Jewish things and asked, What do you most strongly feel you are seeing? [00:04:00] Is it anti Semitism, anti Jew bigotry, anti Jewish racism, etc., with a litany of terms? And the most popular response to these prompts was, was that they were witnessing racism.

[00:04:13] Jonah Platt: Racism, anti Jewish hate, anti Jewish bigotry, anti Jewish racism, all these terms were much more easily identifiable and relatable for people than anti Semitism. So to recap, we gotta start telling it like it is. The people of planet Earth are not all working from the same definition of what anti Semitism is.

[00:04:35] Jonah Platt: I mean, even saying the word out loud, it's a bit ridiculous. Like, why do we acquiesce to the use of this cryptic, scholarly word to describe what is, in reality, simply anti Jewish hate? Why are we making it harder and more complicated for ourselves? I mean, what other minority group is consistently lobbying institutions to simply agree on a preferred definition of what hate against them consists of?

[00:04:59] Jonah Platt: [00:05:00] It's madness! And we now know, scientifically and anecdotally, that people are much more sensitive to overt racism and bigotry than to this obscure and ambiguous term. Now that you're aware of this mission I'm on, you'll notice I almost never use the word antisemitism on this podcast, in my speeches, or online.

[00:05:20] Jonah Platt: It's always anti Jew hate, or anti Jewish racism, or anti Jew bigotry for me. So my challenge to you, dear audience, is to pick whichever alternate term you like best and start using it. In your conversations, your group chats, your workplaces, your public dispatches. Calling out this hate in terms that everyone can understand is a critical step towards fighting it.

[00:05:45] Jonah Platt: And now that you know better, my mission is your mission too. This is the third episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.[00:06:00]

[00:06:24] Jonah Platt: My guest today is one unique dude. He served in the Navy, he's worked in radio, he toured the world as Justin Bieber's bodyguard. He's touched many different facets of the music industry, and since converting to Judaism, has been an advocate for young Jews everywhere in the fight against anti Jewish hate.

[00:06:42] Jonah Platt: Welcome Kenny Hamilton.

[00:06:44] Kenny Hamilton: Thank you, sir. I appreciate being here.

[00:06:45] Jonah Platt: That's great to have you man. Actually funny connection You met my wife before you met me because you took her class at Rise Nation. Oh, wait. Who's your wife? Courtney.

[00:06:54] Kenny Hamilton: Oh, Oh, wow Oh, you waited to tell me that for the reaction. [00:07:00] That's dope. I actually missed that place.

[00:07:03] Kenny Hamilton: Oh, I didn't realize that. That's so crazy. Courtney and Platt. That's right.

[00:07:07] Jonah Platt: There you go. Got it. Okay.

[00:07:09] Kenny Hamilton: Well, shout out to Courtney. Shout out to Courtney.

[00:07:10] Jonah Platt: Every episode basically we have a shout out to Courtney, which, you know, it's appropriate.

[00:07:14] Kenny Hamilton: I love it.

[00:07:14] Jonah Platt: Um, all right. So like you worked with the Biebs as his bodyguard and road manager from 2011 to 2013, right?

[00:07:21] Jonah Platt: Is that right?

[00:07:21] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. A little longer before that, but we'll get into it. Yeah.

[00:07:24] Jonah Platt: Okay. So like, how did that come to be?

[00:07:26] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. So I got into radio to be able to work with artists. That was my whole goal and plan. Well, in college, I had a radio show. I have a little bit of radio knowledge. Maybe I can get a job in radio and that's where I'll meet artists.

[00:07:38] Kenny Hamilton: So I ended up meeting Jermaine, meeting Scooter. So it worked out. It was a good plan. Yeah, and it worked out. And then Scooter and I just started, we were working together, we had these rappers that he was managing, I was like the road manager, and during that time he found Justin. So by the time he moved Justin to Atlanta, I was around, like driving him around, brought him to my radio station.

[00:07:56] Kenny Hamilton: I was like, hey, one day you're gonna sit here. So [00:08:00] before people knew Justin Bieber, two and a half years almost, we were already together and just like trying to figure it out. Once Justin started getting bigger and bigger, um, you know, Scooter was like, Oh, we need to find a security person for him. And I was like, Oh, I know plenty of people.

[00:08:15] Kenny Hamilton: And he was like, no, I want you to do it because I have a military background. I have a martial arts background. What kind of martial

[00:08:21] Jonah Platt: arts?

[00:08:21] Kenny Hamilton: Uh, Wing Chun Kung Fu.

[00:08:23] Jonah Platt: Whoa.

[00:08:23] Kenny Hamilton: With all of that, it was like, No, I want you to do it. But more so, it wasn't about security. It was about having people around who he trusted.

[00:08:29] Kenny Hamilton: Of course. He was 14, about to be 15 around this time. Um, and then everything started rolling.

[00:08:36] Jonah Platt: So, uh, speaking of Scooter, Did he play any role in your journey towards Judaism, where you eventually found yourself?

[00:08:44] Kenny Hamilton: Inadvertently, yes.

[00:08:47] Jonah Platt: I mean, now he's such a big vocal voice for the community, especially since October 7th.

[00:08:51] Jonah Platt: So I was just curious if that was a part of it.

[00:08:53] Kenny Hamilton: It's so funny. So we were hanging out. I remember opening his like freezer. Like we, you know, we're [00:09:00] trying to find something to eat. And he's like, I don't know, whatever you find in there, you open a refrigerator and you open a freezer and you see all these like frozen Tupperware bowls.

[00:09:08] Kenny Hamilton: And you're like, what is this? And he's like, Oh, those are soups my mom sent down. And one day, you know, you eat it and you're like, Oh, this is great.

[00:09:15] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:09:15] Kenny Hamilton: You know, it's like, he's like, you can have them. She sends them down all the time. I was like, she's in soups. She's like, yeah, Jewish moms. All you do is make soups.

[00:09:22] Kenny Hamilton: And I was like, Oh, interesting. Culturally, he was the first Jew that I was ever around that I started seeing a lot more in a very close with his mom, mother and father. Um, and I've gotten a lot of culture and things through there. So like, when I decided to convert, his mom knew before. Wow.

[00:09:41] Jonah Platt: She was like the first phone call?

[00:09:43] Jonah Platt: Oh, amazing.

[00:09:44] Kenny Hamilton: Were you in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem?

[00:09:50] Jonah Platt: Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv.

[00:09:53] Kenny Hamilton: And it's, it's so funny cause I remember landing there. I was excited to go just cause you're like, Oh, we're going to the Holy land. Like it's the [00:10:00] holiest. This is the epicenter of every religion, everything. And we land there and it just felt like there was just a being like that, a spirit that came through me.

[00:10:09] Kenny Hamilton: It was like, welcome home. Like, you feel like you're just, you're here. And I'm like, ah, I'm in a holy, like the Holy land. It was just. It was so invigorating. Also growing up in the South, I thought Jewish meant white. And that's almost what we're taught. Cause it's like, you know, it's a black and white thing, especially growing up in the South growing, you know, all my family growing through the civil rights era, Jim Crow, you know, obviously through slavery and things of that nature, my whole, and my whole thing was if you're not black and you're white, right.

[00:10:39] Kenny Hamilton: And Jews are white people. Yeah, that's what I was told.

[00:10:42] Jonah Platt: And I mean, that's not even just a Southern thing. I mean, that's people all over think that Jews are just white, right? Because, you know, 80 percent of us Jews are Ashkenazi descent. So a lot of them are white presenting. I mean, the majority are. So it's in some ways, you know, you can't blame people for thinking that without the real [00:11:00] knowledge and understanding, but there is knowledge and understanding.

[00:11:03] Jonah Platt: And we'll,

[00:11:03] Kenny Hamilton: we'll even talk about the Ashkenazi term because I never even heard that until maybe 10 years ago.

[00:11:09] Jonah Platt: Okay.

[00:11:09] Kenny Hamilton: Right. And so now we're like, all right, I'm walking through here. We're getting in the cars and driving. But then I'm like, that brother got a kip on. I'm like, why do you Black people got kips on?

[00:11:22] Kenny Hamilton: And somebody looked at me like, they're Jewish. And I was like, Black people ain't Jewish. Literally, that was the one thing from the kid from Decatur, Georgia. I was like, ain't no Black people that's Jewish. It was like, what are you talking about? Like, there's Jews all over the world. And I was like, So the rest of this trip, you know, we're going through, we went everywhere.

[00:11:39] Kenny Hamilton: We went to Yad Vashem, we went to Jerusalem. That was powerful. Um, for people that don't know, I mean, I, I assume that everyone that watches your podcast or listens knows what Yad Vashem is, but Yad Vashem is a Holocaust museum in Israel. Um, and at the time we went with Scooter's grandmother who was with us.

[00:11:56] Kenny Hamilton: His mom and dad was there as well. Um, [00:12:00] his grandmother is a Holocaust survivor, was, God rest her soul. Um, Um, but when we walked in, you walk into Yad Vashem and they have Hitler's regime on the wall. Yeah. And I will never forget the feeling of standing next to her and she just froze because she saw the person that separated her from her brothers and sisters that killed them.

[00:12:21] Kenny Hamilton: The exact person. The exact person. Oh man. And it gave me chills. I lost my grandmother in 2003. And I was very close to my grandmama. Grandmother grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. And I had the same feeling then that I did with my grandmother when she talked about the Klan and told me different things that happened.

[00:12:43] Kenny Hamilton: Um, and I just, so that, that was just one of the things that like stuck in my head forever and ever, um, but being in Israel and going through being through Jerusalem, the old city of David and seeing like [00:13:00] all of these, I started to start educating myself a little bit more. It's like, Hey, there are a lot of East African, you know, Sephardic Jews, but when you say Sephardic, you're like, well, what does that mean?

[00:13:10] Kenny Hamilton: It's like, well, Most people in this region are brown skinned or dark skinned. So then you start saying to yourself, like, Okay, Israel's not a European country.

[00:13:19] Jonah Platt: It's a smorgasbord of

[00:13:21] Kenny Hamilton: everyone from Africa, from these places here that are Jewish and it's our homeland. It's where we feel like we're most safe.

[00:13:29] Kenny Hamilton: It's where we feel like we can go. Every place is kosher. The food is incredible. Doesn't matter where you go.

[00:13:33] Jonah Platt: Any highlights from that trip specifically? Things that really stick out in your mind on that first time through?

[00:13:38] Kenny Hamilton: I learned what a Shabbat elevator is. Yeah. Ha ha. We stayed at the Sheraton. I got in the elevator.

[00:13:45] Kenny Hamilton: I'm pushing the buttons and I'm like, there's something's wrong. But we were on like the 46th floor. Oh man. So after like three floors, I'm like, I'm gonna get off and just get on another elevator. And then I was like, see, this one works. And then you get downstairs and they're [00:14:00] like, I was like, yo, there's a problem with the elevator.

[00:14:02] Kenny Hamilton: They're like, which one? And I said, this one, they're like, oh, that's just about elevator. I was like, what does that mean? They're like, for Orthodox Jews, observant Jews of Shabbat that, you know, you can't push a button. And I was like, oh, you know, it's, I always say that that's like one of the funny stories.

[00:14:20] Jonah Platt: Yeah. What were the Israeli Beliebers like? Insane. Insane.

[00:14:24] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. Um, that was every country. It was, it was, we had barricades outside on the street so no one could pull into the driveway. Um, cause it was just hundreds of people outside.

[00:14:36] Jonah Platt: Is it true that you discovered you have a cousin who lives in Israel?

[00:14:39] Kenny Hamilton: Oh yes.

[00:14:39] Kenny Hamilton: So, uh, during the pandemic, that's funny. I don't know who gave you that, but

[00:14:44] Jonah Platt: I have, I have amazing research assistant. Yeah. Samantha that she finds it all

[00:14:47] Kenny Hamilton: during the pandemic. Um, I did 23 and me the DNA testing. Mm-Hmm. and David Stein lives in Jerusalem and he's the sixth cousin. Sixth or seventh it said.

[00:14:58] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah, it said sixth or seventh [00:15:00] cousin. So I look on a map and I'm like, maybe that's so because I have 25% European, um, blood in me as well. That's a whole other conversation when people try to say during slavery what was happening to the slaves and things of that nature as well. And a lot of them are between Scotland, England, and that United Kingdom area.

[00:15:22] Kenny Hamilton: Um, and then David Stern, he was in Jerusalem.

[00:15:25] Jonah Platt: Did you ever connect with him?

[00:15:27] Kenny Hamilton: No, I, I tried, but no response. Ah, come on, David,

[00:15:29] Jonah Platt: if you're listening to this, you know, Kenny's looking for you. Maybe I should shoot another

[00:15:33] Kenny Hamilton: email out. But yeah, I saw that and I was like, ah.

[00:15:36] Jonah Platt: You know, I read that one of your inspirations before converting was, was Malcolm X, who famously converted to Islam.

[00:15:42] Jonah Platt: What's that connection?

[00:15:43] Kenny Hamilton: And so, and it's very intriguing because when Malcolm talked about his different ways of when he was in the street life in New York, converting to the nation of Islam and when him and the nation of Islam started kind of going at the head, I don't want to [00:16:00] get into that. There's a lot of speculation behind it, but there's one key point.

[00:16:04] Kenny Hamilton: That I always thought was very interesting. And it was when he took his pilgrimage to Mecca, because as he stated, he was told that Muslims were black, that the nation was black men and black this and black that, but he went on his pilgrimage to Mecca and he said that he was praying with all colored Muslims, white, Asian, black, you know, all these different people from all over the world were praying to, you know, Muhammad and they were all worshiping together.

[00:16:34] Kenny Hamilton: And so he went back and his message changed because he was told one thing into another. And, uh, and I kind of felt that same feeling of when I'm in Israel and I'm like, I'm thinking I'm going to another literally like a European country. Like I had more, uh, thoughts when I landed, I went to South Africa, we landed in Cape town and I was so excited.

[00:16:55] Kenny Hamilton: My first time in Africa and I get off the plane and I was like,[00:17:00]

[00:17:05] Kenny Hamilton: Um, and that, that was a, a lot of it, cause it was like, well, y'all told me Jews, we were white, but I'm just walking around with like African Jews and Middle Eastern, uh, you know, you have your Persian Jews, you have Moroccans and Ethiopians, all these different types of, uh, Jewish people. And then I started learning, you know, the Ashkenazi Jews from Europe.

[00:17:25] Kenny Hamilton: And that's where you have majority that came here, Because after the Holocaust as well, and where people were escaping Eastern Europe. So like Scooter's family is Hungarian, majority of them are from Hungary. I have other friends that their families are Polish or some are Russian and things like that.

[00:17:39] Kenny Hamilton: And then you start understanding the dynamic of why, but then you talk to Ethiopian Jews. So like a lot of people don't realize like Ethiopian Jews don't celebrate Hanukkah. I want to say, and it was another, um, Purim as well, I think is another holiday that they don't celebrate. The reason that they don't celebrate it is because.

[00:17:57] Kenny Hamilton: Where a lot of other Jews [00:18:00] that went back during this time after they had already left. So Ethiopians, when they were pushed out, they never went back. They didn't start going back until a few hundred years ago when they were trying to get back. And really there's a lot more recently in the last hundred years to be completely honest, right?

[00:18:12] Kenny Hamilton: Oh, yeah, even less immigration, even less than that. So I met a woman who came back over. I think she said 72, 73. And she told me about the stories that their ancestors always talked about returning to the land of milk and honey.

[00:18:27] Jonah Platt: And

[00:18:27] Kenny Hamilton: they said for over 1500 years, this is what they were told. This is what they thought about.

[00:18:32] Kenny Hamilton: So a lot of the other holidays that I said that they don't observe, I learned because they weren't there fighting in those wars or a part of that piece of history. So a lot of it was. I was deceived, but then you start realizing as you get older, people just don't have the knowledge that you think they do.

[00:18:52] Kenny Hamilton: So I don't take it personal, but now I looked at it is. And it took me a long time to convert because I was worried about what everyone else thought. [00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Jonah Platt: Who's everyone else?

[00:19:01] Kenny Hamilton: My family, my father, my sisters, friends. Cause it's like, you know, you grow up in the church and I was like, you know, why do I have to buy a new suit every Easter?

[00:19:12] Kenny Hamilton: What's the bunny for? Like, cause it is like, okay, but I feel stressed now that I got to get a new suit every time. So I never thought about like, Oh, it was resurrection Sunday. I thought about, I got to be the flies one at church,

[00:19:22] Jonah Platt: right?

[00:19:23] Kenny Hamilton: I ain't care about nothing else, but like making sure I had my Stacey Adams and whatever color, you know, suit I could wear.

[00:19:28] Kenny Hamilton: I was wear bright color suits at times. I was, you know, one of those guys. Get

[00:19:31] Jonah Platt: those pastels for Easter. You got

[00:19:33] Kenny Hamilton: to. And it's like, Oh, then Easter egg hunt. But what does this have to do with anything? I don't know. But this is what we're told. This is what we're told. taught and it's like it is this way because it is but I just felt more of a connection I was like, well, I have a direct relationship with God the Old Testament or the Torah is God's Word.

[00:19:51] Jonah Platt: Mm hmm.

[00:19:51] Kenny Hamilton: And Again, I don't mean this in any Disrespectful way to the Christian community, but I look at the New Testament as the [00:20:00] People's opinions during that time. And then I was kind of like, well, what if this was a left wing opinion? What if this was a right wing opinion? What if this one was the green party?

[00:20:11] Kenny Hamilton: Like, so then I was like, you know what, I don't know how to validate this, but we do know how to validate that. And we all agree. That this is God's word. So from, from Genesis to Psalms, these books are all, are all God's word. And I want to follow that. And I'll be honest, I was telling somebody the other day, it's like, since my conversion, I felt closer to God, like a direct relationship with God.

[00:20:36] Kenny Hamilton: Like we speak more and I pray more. And, um, there's a lot of other aspects. I love the idea of Shabbat and I don't observe every Friday, but I would, I like to, but I make sure I say a prayer. I, I. It's just everything feels more direct, more powerful in a sense to me. You

[00:20:56] Jonah Platt: said you have a son? Do you have, is he your only [00:21:00] child?

[00:21:00] Jonah Platt: Yeah,

[00:21:00] Kenny Hamilton: he's my only child biologically. And then my girlfriend, we have a family of four and she has a son as well. Um, our household is very Jewish. She's converting as well. Oh, that's amazing. Is she

[00:21:12] Jonah Platt: in the process now?

[00:21:13] Kenny Hamilton: We haven't started just yet. She said when the rain comes, then she's ready.

[00:21:17] Jonah Platt: Fair enough.

[00:21:18] Kenny Hamilton: Yep. So we're working on that one.

[00:21:19] Jonah Platt: All right. All right. No pressure.

[00:21:22] Kenny Hamilton: I got a good jeweler. He's in New York. There you go. So step one might've already picked it out. Uh, but, um, but yeah, and so I don't force it on them, but I'm starting to teach my son, everything. Um, his mother is, is Southern Baptist as well.

[00:21:38] Kenny Hamilton: And, you know, I don't want to feel like I'm forcing anything on anyone, but we do plan to have more kids and those kids will be born into, into Judaism. Um, but there's just a lot of aspects and you know, it's so crazy that people don't realize there's so many experiences of, of being black and being Jewish that are so similar, but people [00:22:00] don't know it cause they don't talk about it.

[00:22:01] Jonah Platt: Tell, please enlighten us.

[00:22:03] Kenny Hamilton: You know, I was in Israel 20, 22. Um, I had an artist that I was managing at the time who we had a couple Afrobeat records that did really well. We did a show in Tel Aviv, but also had him do a record with Eliad. Who's a big, um, Israeli singer as well. Eliyad's family is Moroccan and Iraqi Jewish.

[00:22:21] Jonah Platt: Mm hmm.

[00:22:22] Kenny Hamilton: And he was like, Hey, come to the house for, you know, having a big celebration for Shavuot. Of course, I'm, I'm coming over and, you know, I get there, you see all the food, they have a huge spread. And it's like, black folks, like, anytime we celebrate, Everybody's cooking. But grandma was in the kitchen here and you got the auntie that always drinks a lot of wine before the meal comes.

[00:22:41] Kenny Hamilton: And people know what I'm talking about. You got that one that's already sauced. You got the cousins that are sitting at a table like, Hey, you want to go smoke a joint? You got the, the uncle that, you know, y'all don't like him. Cause he cheated on, you know, your auntie, but he's still here. Cause we got to celebrate.

[00:22:56] Kenny Hamilton: You got, while we're eating grandma's like, Oh, do you [00:23:00] want any more? I said, no, I'm full. She takes three more scoops, puts it on your plate. After the meal, you out there, all the OGs, as we call them, the big uncles, the outside playing cards, they smoking cigars, they drinking liquor. It's all the same. I was, I literally said, if I close my eyes, I might be back in Atlanta.

[00:23:18] Kenny Hamilton: Like, it's the same thing. It's like, you know, we celebrate family, we celebrate birthdays, but we do it big. We have once a week, we have big meals. So it's like Sunday dinners. After church and Shabbat, you have big, you know what I'm saying? It's

[00:23:32] Jonah Platt: like,

[00:23:33] Kenny Hamilton: it's the observant of everything. And it's like, it's all rooted because we all come from this one region.

[00:23:38] Jonah Platt: Do you feel like that's the link is based on where we're from? Or it's, it's more of like a, you know, like a cultural thing and a heart thing and a soul thing.

[00:23:47] Kenny Hamilton: That all is aspects of where we're rooted.

[00:23:51] Jonah Platt: What was the reaction? You know, you said you weren't nervous as you were approaching your conversion.

[00:23:56] Jonah Platt: Like what was some of the responses and the reactions? that you [00:24:00] got from people close to you? Was, was everybody supportive, not

[00:24:02] Kenny Hamilton: supportive? Some of my Ashkenazi Jewish friends were like, you sure you want to be oppressed twice? And I laughed it off. But then like over the last like 11 months, now I really get

[00:24:12] Jonah Platt: it.

[00:24:12] Jonah Platt: It's like, this is what I signed up for. I

[00:24:14] Kenny Hamilton: really, really get it. Which is why I got even louder. Um, which

[00:24:18] Jonah Platt: we'll talk about also.

[00:24:19] Kenny Hamilton: And you know, other folks, you know, I suppose the black folks was like, there's a, a cloud over Jews in the entertainment business. It's like. We just run everything and it's all through here and it's like that's not true either.

[00:24:33] Kenny Hamilton: No, it was never Like that, but then you go back to like the actual history of ashkenazis when they came to america and they didn't get opportunities as well They didn't get opportunities to it. So it's like okay if I can't get hired I'll just start my own firm, right? They didn't get jobs and people got started their own right now on the surface when you're in America, especially during this time, it's still black versus white.

[00:24:58] Kenny Hamilton: So black people didn't have the [00:25:00] same resources or opportunities as Jewish people did as Italians as other folks because they stuck in their communities. Now you know, you go back to when slavery is over and people are like, Oh, well slavery is over. Get over it. Well, You didn't let black folks learn how to read.

[00:25:15] Kenny Hamilton: You didn't let black folks learn how to write. Then slavery is over. We push you outside and say, okay, you're free. Oh, but guess what? You can't go in here. You can't go in here. You can't go in here. You can't vote. You can't do this. So then you push them all to what became ghettos and redlining, not letting black folks get loans and get houses.

[00:25:31] Kenny Hamilton: And that's where the systemic racism thing, the argument comes in. Sure. It's not an argument. It's just factual.

[00:25:36] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:25:37] Kenny Hamilton: So. I understand where a lot of it's rooted, but now being Jewish and understanding Jewish culture, I understand where that's rooted because When we say never again, and the Holocaust happened to so many Ashkenazis and Jews everywhere else were being murdered.

[00:25:55] Kenny Hamilton: Jews throughout Africa were being murdered. I just talked about how Ethiopians literally told [00:26:00] me for generations how they had to leave the major cities in Ethiopia because Christians and Muslims were murdering Jews by the, by the numbers and boatloads. Yeah. And you look at the number of Jews throughout the Middle East and where they were pushed to Israel.

[00:26:14] Kenny Hamilton: That's, there's a reason why there's no Jews in Iraq or Iran. And yeah, they're all gone. They're all in Israel. They're murdered and they had to leave and they had to flee. And so you go through that. You move to a country where you have opportunity, whatever opportunities you can. Yes. You're going to keep them within your households in here.

[00:26:34] Kenny Hamilton: Right. So there's a, there's a lot of layers, um, to that. And You look at a lot of the white people that were Freedom Riders, they were Jewish.

[00:26:45] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:26:46] Kenny Hamilton: Freedom Riders were ones that came down south to help. Blacks during civil rights and Jim Crow era and things of that nature. And, you know, now like people talk about Dr.

[00:26:54] Kenny Hamilton: King and, um,

[00:26:56] Jonah Platt: um, Heschel.

[00:26:57] Kenny Hamilton: Thank you. Yeah, but that's not the only one. There were [00:27:00] many others like Bernie Sanders was one and, and we were all about helping each other's communities and sticking together.

[00:27:06] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:27:06] Kenny Hamilton: Um, and I just wish that. more black people could see how more similar we are to the Jewish experience versus, you know, the, the white, like the Jewish experience isn't the white experience.

[00:27:21] Kenny Hamilton: Yes. It's interchangeable in times, but you have to understand there's so many different, um, Jews around the world and so many different Jewish people. And it's not just all in one.

[00:27:31] Jonah Platt: And the Jewish story is thousands of years older than the white American story, you know? So let's go back to your conversion.

[00:27:38] Jonah Platt: What's the final step where you're like, I'm ready to do this. I'm going to push the button.

[00:27:43] Kenny Hamilton: Dr. Brown Scooter's father actually asked me, he's like, so you want to convert? So are you, are you going to go, you know, which way are you going with it? And I didn't understand the question at first. So then I was like, let me really dive into the different sects to Orthodox to, um, [00:28:00] you know, Kabbalah to.

[00:28:02] Kenny Hamilton: Reformed, which is what I ended up, um, converting through. Um, and I'm friends with, uh, yeah, show a fat. It was a Marty Stoudemire. Um, and when he was playing in Jerusalem and studying, he converted Orthodox. And he's very observant. And we had a few conversations, you know, over the years and just texting here and there, just about different things.

[00:28:25] Kenny Hamilton: But like, he really studies the Torah really goes into it. And. I was like, well, I kind of know the Old Testament and the Torah. So I was like, I think I'm, I have a good foundation of it. So I did end up going reform, but yeah, I went to the Kabbalah center. I went to just to like really learn.

[00:28:41] Jonah Platt: Doing your due

[00:28:42] Kenny Hamilton: diligence.

[00:28:43] Kenny Hamilton: Between everything. Yeah.

[00:28:44] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:28:45] Kenny Hamilton: And then, um, I had a friend in New York who was like, Hey, if you're ready, I'll help you, you know, find a canter and we'll go through it. And he ended up introducing me to a canter amulet who's a good friend now. And, um, I ended up [00:29:00] going through my conversion.

[00:29:01] Jonah Platt: How long was the program?

[00:29:02] Jonah Platt: Like, how long did it take you to do?

[00:29:03] Kenny Hamilton: Um, about nine months.

[00:29:05] Jonah Platt: Yeah, because they like to take you through, like, the calendar, right? They take you

[00:29:08] Kenny Hamilton: through it. Yeah, they take you through the calendar, and it's like one course a week. And, you know, you just, you go through it all with different speakers and different things.

[00:29:16] Kenny Hamilton: And it's like, it's so funny because, like, when you convert to Christianity, it's like, You go to church, you say you want to be saved, you like raise your hand, you go up, and you're good. You're in. And it's like, uh, welcome. The, like, Jews are like, why do you want to be Jewish? And it's like, you, you go through a, well, because to make sure it's like rooted in your heart and things of that nature.

[00:29:32] Kenny Hamilton: And Christianity is also rooted in the heart, too. Uh, I'm trying to be very careful of course, but I think also with

[00:29:38] Jonah Platt: Judaism, you're not just joining a religion, you're joining a tribe. Yeah. You know, it's not just something you can pick up and put down.

[00:29:44] Kenny Hamilton: Exactly. Now you're in it.

[00:29:46] Jonah Platt: Now you're in it. Yeah. Um, was there like, what was something surprising you learned during that conversion process that like you had never heard of before?

[00:29:56] Jonah Platt: Didn't know about Jews. And we're like, Oh, that's interesting.

[00:29:58] Kenny Hamilton: The biggest thing [00:30:00] was the holidays and the oppression. And like when you really break down all the different wars throughout time and stuff like that, that was more intriguing to me than anything else. Cause then you start putting in perspective, like, man, it's always.

[00:30:16] Kenny Hamilton: people coming after the Jews.

[00:30:18] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:30:19] Kenny Hamilton: Before, you know, when it was Judea and Samaria, each one of these went after Jewish people in this region to take control, not only of the resources, But to take control of the holiest land of holy land. Yep. So like this last trip I just took to, um, Israel and I went back through Jerusalem.

[00:30:40] Kenny Hamilton: I was able to see some of the new discovery that they found where they found this big pool where people went that led back up to the, to To the temple. Oh, that's cool. We're right by the Mount of Olives. We're right here. And then they're starting to find like shackles that had Hebrew writing on them.

[00:30:56] Kenny Hamilton: Mm-Hmm. , they're, they're finding all this stuff. They're finding [00:31:00] bones and skeletons because. You know, folks were murdered through there. And this is right where the first mosque is right here. Like all of this stuff is all around, but you're finding relics of Judaism. So it's like, you know, we're in a time where history is either being, you know, whitewashed or just kind of wiped.

[00:31:19] Kenny Hamilton: And it's like, you can't wipe away the history that Jews are from here. This is the ancestry. All the other stuff's built

[00:31:26] Jonah Platt: on top of the Jewish stuff. Everything's built on

[00:31:28] Kenny Hamilton: top. And they keep digging and digging and finding more and more. Is

[00:31:34] Jonah Platt: there something that you learned during that time that like you really loved that you hold on to?

[00:31:40] Kenny Hamilton: I still love the aspect of Shabbat and the purpose and meaning of it, and especially today. Sitting down, no phones at the table, you speak to family, you're praying together. But we're losing that human connection with each other that [00:32:00] I feel like Shabbat is the most important thing that we could ever do.

[00:32:03] Kenny Hamilton: Not only as Jews, but just as humans in a technological society.

[00:32:07] Jonah Platt: Yeah, it's a gift.

[00:32:08] Kenny Hamilton: I love the fact that Shabbat is not only about us sitting down and just reflecting on the week and, you know, paying our respects to God, but it's paying our respects to each other.

[00:32:19] Jonah Platt: Yeah, I love that.

[00:32:20] Kenny Hamilton: And it's a very, um, enlightening, enlightening thing that I think that still excites me the most.

[00:32:27] Jonah Platt: That's awesome. Everybody loves Shabbat. I mean, it's my, my wife, Courtney converted. I don't know if you know that her, her dad is, uh, it's her family's like Italian American. And every time her dad visits, he's like, we should button. Right. He loves it. But

[00:32:40] Kenny Hamilton: then you can bring your own, um, you bring your own flair to it.

[00:32:44] Kenny Hamilton: Like totally everybody's got their own family traditions, their own things they like to do. And that's the other thing that. Over the years, you start learning like, Oh, my family is from, you know, my Persian Jewish friends. They're all from like different parts, but they all have different things that they do on certain [00:33:00] holidays that are different from, you know, my Ashkenazi friends and like, everybody has it.

[00:33:04] Kenny Hamilton: So, um, There's a, there's a black Jewish chef called, I think he's at the Cooking Gene on IG. And he does all these different like soul food, kosher recipes

[00:33:14] Jonah Platt: of

[00:33:14] Kenny Hamilton: just like food that you're like, oh, that's fire. Like with greens and with this and with that. That's not

[00:33:20] Jonah Platt: Michael Twitty, is it? That is his name.

[00:33:21] Jonah Platt: Michael Twitty? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like the famous. soul food, Jewish chef. And so he does

[00:33:26] Kenny Hamilton: all these things and I was just like, man, I got to start, you know, I started trying to save some of his recipes and stuff.

[00:33:32] Jonah Platt: So now you're a black Jew. What's the most annoying questions you get?

[00:33:38] Kenny Hamilton: Why did you want to be Jewish?

[00:33:39] Kenny Hamilton: Or not even annoying, it's like, Oh, what did you go and do that for? I get more things now of like, because of the war and everything else that's going on of like, Oh, you should know better. You speaking up for this and that. And I was like, I do know better. That's why I'm, I'm speaking up.

[00:33:56] Jonah Platt: What's been the reaction.

[00:33:57] Jonah Platt: Cause you, you, you cover a couple of [00:34:00] different circles that have been, you know, not necessarily the most supportive in terms of the music industry and the black community. And, and, and specifically you're a manager too. So I know a lot of, you know, talent reps have an issue with this cause they've got client relationships and business relationships.

[00:34:16] Jonah Platt: So I know there's a lot, you know, to navigate. So what's the calculus for you and you know, what's your react, the response been as you've stepped forward?

[00:34:23] Kenny Hamilton: It's been, it's been hard. It's been, it's been stressful. A lot of anxiety. You know, I try to laugh through a lot of it in the sense of not laughing at the situation, but laughing at like what comes to me a lot of times.

[00:34:36] Kenny Hamilton: Cause you get so many people that say things to you and you laugh cause you're like, they just really don't understand. And it, it's, it's twofold. And I think it's difficult because if you really look at where we've, where we have been headed as a society over the last 10 years. If you go against the majority, then you're looked at as like something just [00:35:00] completely out of the norm.

[00:35:01] Jonah Platt: I don't think that's a recent development. That sounds like sort of human nature, right?

[00:35:06] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah, but because of the rise of social media, it's roared its head to a whole other being, right? Um, politically socially, I mean, you know, you look at cancel culture and rightfully so, like you can dig through the past of everything.

[00:35:23] Kenny Hamilton: We can't change the way society was. Cause I mean, if we want to go through it, then it's like, okay, well, let's go through everybody whose grandfather was racist and held black people back. I just say all that to say, like, I get a, there's, it's been very difficult. I've had clients who are, Jumping on the bandwagon of, of things and saying things out loud that you can tell that even they don't have the full story about it.

[00:35:44] Kenny Hamilton: Sure. And then you're looking at people, you know, the, the campus protests and all these things like, folks haven't even been to the Middle East. So then I have a wartime mindset when it comes to a lot of things that I can't speak about publicly because people look at me like I'm crazy. [00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Jonah Platt: What do you mean?

[00:36:01] Kenny Hamilton: I was in a war.

[00:36:02] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:36:02] Kenny Hamilton: So I understand that if there's somebody in this building who's responsible for killing over 500 to 1, 000 people, and will probably try to do more because they want their sharia law over anything, and you don't understand what that means, that he's embedding himself here, you gotta take him out.

[00:36:19] Jonah Platt: Right. So you understand the stakes from a real point of view,

[00:36:22] Kenny Hamilton: but you can't have, we used to say this in the military and this is why when they, they, you know, they say they train your mind or whatever, but you can't always talk to civilians about what you need to do to keep civilians safe. Right. And do I wish that there was no war?

[00:36:40] Kenny Hamilton: Absolutely. There's been war since the beginning of time.

[00:36:43] Jonah Platt: There's

[00:36:43] Kenny Hamilton: certain things in life that are just not gonna change. Unfortunately, right now we wish one day that it will. So it's, it's hard to have conversations with people and I try not to get in debates anymore. I try to just lead with facts.

[00:36:57] Jonah Platt: Have you been able to approach some of these [00:37:00] clients?

[00:37:00] Jonah Platt: Yeah, I've had,

[00:37:01] Kenny Hamilton: I've never been, I've never, Not had a conversation with somebody that approaches me. I do know the difference between some folks that just don't listen to any other opinion outside of themselves, or they just want to talk to people that affirm what they already believe, which happens a lot on both sides.

[00:37:18] Kenny Hamilton: Sure. Um, it's not pretty and it's never been pretty in this region, but They're also like, I'm not going to let you tell me that like Israel is a white colonizing country. There are Ethiopians that were murdered on October 7th. Hezbollah has been attacking Israel since October 8th. Consistently. I got the apps.

[00:37:35] Kenny Hamilton: I'll show you. I get my phone goes off a lot of the same times. Every morning of just rocket attacks in the West. Right. But there are a lot of black and Brown Israelis and people in Israel. And so it's just like, it's crazy when I hear people like, Oh, you should know better. Like they're a precedent. And I'm like, do you realize, like, I have Palestinian friends that will tell you the, the equivalent of saying the N [00:38:00] word and how dark Arabs are treated in these other countries.

[00:38:04] Kenny Hamilton: Cause colorism is a issue everywhere.

[00:38:07] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:38:07] Kenny Hamilton: Um, especially in these Arab nations. Yeah.

[00:38:10] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:38:10] Kenny Hamilton: And the things that happen in there, like I've sat with people that live there, I've talked to people that had to flee there and their families leave there because they tried to speak freely and they know what Sharia law means and it's like.

[00:38:24] Kenny Hamilton: You know, you get a lot of young people here now that are yelling this and that and fighting the resistance. And you see these Hamas flags and this and that, and then something happens to them, they still going to pick up the phone and call 911. And I say that to say, it's like, you can't have it both ways.

[00:38:39] Kenny Hamilton: So it's either you try to educate yourself. But you can't fight with people that don't want to educate themselves. And you can't fight with people that want to affirm what they want to believe to be true and not want to hear any other side or any other factual things that happen with it.

[00:38:54] Jonah Platt: Well, you can fight with them.

[00:38:55] Jonah Platt: You just can't get anywhere.

[00:38:57] Kenny Hamilton: You know, it's like, it's the same. It's like when I [00:39:00] go to Israel, like I love being there and I've been there many times now, but you're also under the, you know that, Hey, every border around us, they want to kill everyone here. Yeah. They want to kill the black Jews as well, the African Jews and everyone that is there.

[00:39:14] Jonah Platt: I don't think people can comprehend that everyday lived experience. Yeah, it's like

[00:39:19] Kenny Hamilton: Israel is California, but Oregon wants to take us out. Washington wants to take us out. Arizona, Nevada, everything that borders us. Right. Mexico are all enemies.

[00:39:30] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:39:31] Kenny Hamilton: And we didn't choose them.

[00:39:32] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:39:32] Kenny Hamilton: Because we'd never start the fight, but you have to protect yourself.

[00:39:36] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. And that's one thing I don't understand that, you know, doesn't come into people's minds.

[00:39:41] Jonah Platt: Since you converted, have you felt welcomed by the Jewish community?

[00:39:45] Kenny Hamilton: Very welcomed by the Jewish community, absolutely. You know, I've been to different Shavuots and, you know, Stephen Weiss has been my temple of choice.

[00:39:52] Kenny Hamilton: It's very welcoming, but it's the same. It's like, Oh, you got to come to our house for Shabbat. It's literally the same as black folks say, Oh, y'all got to come over. [00:40:00] You know, you know, my wife, she cooks amazing dinner. Come on over Sunday, man. Y'all come for dinners. It's the same thing that I grew up with.

[00:40:05] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. You know, it's just rooted in, in love and in Judaism.

[00:40:10] Jonah Platt: In, in terms of your connection to Judaism, has it changed since October 7th? It's,

[00:40:16] Kenny Hamilton: it's just changed because it's made it stronger. Like it's got me to a point where I've had people to say like, Oh, I didn't realize you were like so Jewish. And I was like, man, I was been saying this stuff before October 7th.

[00:40:30] Kenny Hamilton: I was here and talking about it, but no one paid attention because it wasn't popular. Now it's all on the brands again, and now it's popular. Um, I think it's just reaffirmed it and made it a lot stronger. Yeah. Um, and almost in the senses where you feel like the world is against us and the world is against you being Jewish, like people are like, Oh, you wear your necklaces out and so proud.

[00:40:52] Kenny Hamilton: And I'm in America. So it's like, Americans are ignorant. They're looking for white Jews. They don't look for us, black Jews or [00:41:00] Sephardic Jews or any other type of Jewish people because they don't know they exist. So I walk around freely, but I still feel safer as a Jew in Israel than I do in America right now.

[00:41:11] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. Which is a crazy thing to say.

[00:41:14] Jonah Platt: Yep. But it's actually not that crazy. It's a common refrain. We actually, on the last episode of this podcast, had Montana tuck her on and we touched on the exact same thing. She feels the same way.

[00:41:22] Kenny Hamilton: I used to manage Montana when she was 15.

[00:41:24] Jonah Platt: Oh, no way. Well, speaking of Montana and, uh, social media stars, you have a big following on social media across channels.

[00:41:32] Jonah Platt: Yeah. What has the reaction from that audience been? Because I imagine most of them are, know you from your music career. Yeah. Um, and so what has the response been on social to, to you being Jewish and speaking out about Jewish issues?

[00:41:45] Kenny Hamilton: Um, I get a lot of little DMs here and there. Supportive

[00:41:49] Jonah Platt: ones or hateful ones?

[00:41:50] Kenny Hamilton: I get a lot of support, but get a lot of hateful ones. I mean, you know, I feel like you can't be on social media and not get any hate. Right. You know, people want you to die and you get the [00:42:00] clowns and the monkey, the things that get through and, you know, all stuff I've heard before, but I just call them keyboard gangsters and then also to like, you have a lot of bots.

[00:42:10] Kenny Hamilton: When I say bots, like they're literally companies in third world countries that are paid through other proxies to be able to just throw out Misinformation. Absolutely. Crap.

[00:42:21] Jonah Platt: All right, last question Rosh Hashanah is in a few days coming up. Are you gonna be celebrating Rosh Hashanah?

[00:42:28] Kenny Hamilton: Absolutely.

[00:42:28] Jonah Platt: And so what's one resolution you have and one wish you have for the new year?

[00:42:34] Kenny Hamilton: I'm working on the resolution. My wish is Is that my business becomes more consistent, meaning what, meaning that the music business are being a manager is hard, but I'm now partnering with friends and we created a new like advisory firm to where we kind of work across a lot of different variables throughout entertainment.

[00:42:57] Kenny Hamilton: Um, and I'm really liking that work a lot. [00:43:00] Cool. Um, so I'm looking for the consistency in that because also to like, If you talk to a lot of actors and producers and stuff, they'll tell you about the film world and how after the strike, a lot of it hasn't really recovered. Oh yeah, where it's wait, it's a survive to

[00:43:13] Jonah Platt: 25.

[00:43:13] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. And so it's gotten really tough for everyone. And I just, I wish for consistency across all levels because it's, we're all intertwined and it all affects. Each of us. Sure. And going through a lot of tough times. My resolution is for this, this new year to actually, like, start praying every morning, because I get up pretty early.

[00:43:32] Kenny Hamilton: But now I'm like, you know, by the time I get up, it's still middle of the day and on that side of the world. Mm hmm. So now, like, a resolution I have is to do my morning prayer and to feel in every morning.

[00:43:43] Jonah Platt: What does that do for you?

[00:43:45] Kenny Hamilton: It just, I don't know, it felt like it was like, um, It just, I just felt even more connected to a whole other being and like, almost like I just like kind of floated up to everything.

[00:43:55] Kenny Hamilton: Like I was talking to God face to face.

[00:43:57] Jonah Platt: Wow.

[00:43:58] Kenny Hamilton: You know, and um, I [00:44:00] didn't, I hadn't felt that before. So it was really weird to like really feel that and be. You know, pull it into that energy. That's amazing. Yeah.

[00:44:07] Jonah Platt: All right. So those are my questions Now we're going to take a couple questions from our instagram followers Okay, you can leave questions every week for whoever our guest is going to be Here's a couple of great ones and a shout out I got to say some of these questions come from my hevra at the jewish federation's uh, national leadership cabinet So thank you guys for showing up this week um Rach.

[00:44:30] Jonah Platt: Fleisch asks, will you have a bar mitzvah?

[00:44:34] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah, I will. I will. Cause I, I thought about just doing it in Israel. Um, but then I was like, well, I got a lot of friends here too. So maybe I, you know, we do something.

[00:44:43] Jonah Platt: Throw a little party. Yeah. You know, you're gonna have a theme.

[00:44:46] Kenny Hamilton: That's what I'm thinking about.

[00:44:47] Kenny Hamilton: Cause I turned 44 next year and I'm like, uh, Maybe we make it like, you know, Obama ish, and combine it all together somehow, you know?

[00:44:57] Jonah Platt: What does an Obama themed bar mitzvah look like? I have no [00:45:00] idea. So

[00:45:00] Kenny Hamilton: every year, so like, when I turned 42, I was like, oh, this is my Jackie Robinson year.

[00:45:03] Jonah Platt: Yeah, I think about, I do it in jersey numbers too.

[00:45:06] Jonah Platt: Yeah,

[00:45:06] Kenny Hamilton: but then 43, I was like, There's no legends with 43. I literally like went through the whole line, baseball, basketball. I was like, can't find anybody. So 44, the first thing you think of when I say 44, I think Obama

[00:45:19] Jonah Platt: underscore ran seven one eight asks, was it the latkes or the Kugel that sold you?

[00:45:26] Kenny Hamilton: Uh, I love it.

[00:45:27] Kenny Hamilton: Chocolate Kugel. Chocolate Kugel. Oh, no, no, no. Uh, Babka chocolate. Babka is my favorite. Babka is amazing. Kugels are good, but it was the Babka.

[00:45:35] Jonah Platt: That was it. Babka is what got

[00:45:36] Kenny Hamilton: me. Um, and then I ain't not going to lie after I converted because I love Seinfeld and I always love Seinfeld. Yeah. But like I started getting a lot of the jokes even more.

[00:45:46] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. And

[00:45:46] Jonah Platt: I get the Bobca episode. Oh my God. It

[00:45:48] Kenny Hamilton: was incredible.

[00:45:50] Jonah Platt: So there's a second question from underscore ran 718 is how do you like to blend tradition, the traditions with which you were raised with how you like to celebrate Jewish culture? [00:46:00]

[00:46:00] Kenny Hamilton: I do it with food.

[00:46:02] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:46:03] Kenny Hamilton: So like, you know, Yom Kippur is coming up.

[00:46:05] Kenny Hamilton: Yeah. When I break fast, it's like, I got grits, we got turkey bacon. Like my grits is fire. Trust me every Sunday.

[00:46:13] Jonah Platt: I believe it.

[00:46:14] Kenny Hamilton: Um, you know, we do the, I do, I have, I'll have like locks cause I already love like locks and, uh, bagels and stuff as well. But like, yeah, I, I bring the grits in, we got pancakes. Like we really break a fast and we going to do it.

[00:46:26] Kenny Hamilton: It's going to look like the whole lumberjack at Denny's plus everything at every soul food restaurant you done thought of. Um, with the lock keys, but yeah, I, I do it through food a lot. I'd love, um, and just adding my own, cause that's what it is. It's like adding your own like flair to it. And that's what you realize over the years.

[00:46:45] Kenny Hamilton: And so many people have so many different traditions. So I've just kind of created some of my own within the, within the customary tradition.

[00:46:52] Jonah Platt: Amazing. All right. Last question. Uh, Shalom Letters wants, uh, says the Jewish teens are feeling really isolated right [00:47:00] now. How do we find Jewish joy in such intense times?

[00:47:03] Kenny Hamilton: I feel like we find the joy in the moments. Because life is about moments and as much pain as a lot of the moments are. There was just another attack at the University of Michigan, uh, and it's, it's, it's hard being Jewish everywhere because of people that don't have all the knowledge and that are just, you know, jumping on the bandwagon with things.

[00:47:26] Kenny Hamilton: But yeah. We just have to know and keep telling ourselves that this will come to an end. We're not going anywhere. We've been resilient. We remain resilient, but we remain together. You find joy in the togetherness. For every young Jewish person out there that sees this or hears this, I would say, you know, stick with those who love you and, you know, you have to be careful and just like watch out for yourselves right now.

[00:47:57] Kenny Hamilton: Until we can get a rain on, on all of the [00:48:00] craziness. Hopefully it doesn't get worse before it gets better, but I truly believe that it will get better. After every storm, it's always clear blue skies.

[00:48:09] Jonah Platt: That's right. You heard it here. It will get better. Kenny, thank you so much for being here today. That was such a enlightening conversation and not at

[00:48:17] Kenny Hamilton: all,

[00:48:17] Jonah Platt: man.

[00:48:17] Jonah Platt: That's what you were here for us. Well, you know, we were here to learn and you know, what this show is so much about is just showing people how different being Jewish. Can be to every different person Individually, there's a whole spectrum of identity and ways that people connect and everybody's got a different end point And absolutely so you you contributed so much to that conversation.

[00:48:39] Jonah Platt: So, thank you.

[00:48:40] Kenny Hamilton: I appreciate you having

[00:48:41] me